'Highly recommended to all readers—add this one to your collection.’--The Shetland Times
Arctic whaling was a vital part of the Scottish economy throughout the 19th Century, and it was a brutal business -- for the whalers as well as the prey they hunted. Sailors, some as young as fourteen, journeyed to the remotest frozen seas in search of the largest animals in the world, facing ice, storm and shipwreck daily. It is unsurprising that if and when they did return, they threw off all restraint and were notorious for their rowdy behaviour and wild carousing.
Malcolm Archibald vividly evokes the lives of these men in his history, using log books and journals, custom and company records, to accurately portray their working lives, their families and above all their relationship to the awesome creatures which provided them with their livelihood and brief periods of prosperity. Aimed at the general reader, Whalehunters is full of dramatic incidents, colourful characters and little-known facts about Scotland’s maritime history.
Malcolm Archibald was born in Edinburgh in 1957 and educated at the Royal High School and Dundee University where he gained a First Class honours degree in history. As well as lecturing at Dundee College, he has worked as a researcher for a SCRAN project on the history of the Scottish East Coast fishing industry. His other publications include Across the Pond, a history of the North Atlantic.
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